The Frontyard Holiday Festival was hopping Saturday night at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. The area around the downtown Orlando arts center was filled with holiday revelers as live Latin music filled the air.
There was celebrating inside, too — from Broadway lovers, Disney fans and a large contingent of people of Filipino heritage as the Walt Disney Theater hosted Lea Salonga, making the final stop on this North American leg of her “Stage, Screen & Everything In Between” tour.
How beloved is she? At intermission, the line to buy commemorative tour merchandise stretched all the way down to the Steinmetz Hall side of the building. I got myself a “Team Kim” button while the young woman behind me was singing “Reflection” from Disney’s “Mulan.”
Kim, of course, is the tragic hero of “Miss Saigon,” the West End and Broadway hit that made Salonga a star in 1989 when she was just 18 years old. “The tiny little musical that changed my life,” she joked.
Salonga sang two “Miss Saigon” duets during Saturday’s show, sharing the spotlight with each of her backup singers. Sarah Galbraith joined Salonga for “The Movie in My Mind,” given the seriousness it’s due, and tenor Andrew Kotzen provided the male half of the love duet “The Last Night of the World.”
“It’s safe to say without ‘Miss Saigon’ we wouldn’t be here in this beautiful concert hall sharing this music,” she said.
Salonga also provided the singing voice of both Disney’s Princess Jasmine and Mulan, and rejoined with Kotzen, who sang Aladdin’s part of “Whole New World,” while she soloed on Mulan’s signature “Reflection.” Her voice retains the clarity and purity she’s famed for, though its maturity comes through now, too.
She had fun comparing her two Disney characters — “the two ladies that will always have my heart” — remarking how one was able to save her whole country, bring honor to her family and do it all without marrying a man. (If you aren’t a Disney fan, that would be Mulan.)
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“As for Princess Jasmine … she’s hot. Good for her,” Salonga joked.
Her forthright manner was evident in her audience addresses during the two-hour show, but so was a sense of fun — singing the Orlando riff from “The Book of Mormon.” “I couldn’t help myself,” she told the audience, “and clearly all of you got the reference.”
She shared that she originally planned to become a doctor — “I’m Asian. It tracks,” she joked — before musical theater become her career. She didn’t mention, though, that it was recently announced she’ll play Madame Thenardier in a new arena production of “Les Miserables” in her home country of the Philippines.
Salonga has previously played both Eponine and Fantine in the musical, and performed a rousing and heartfelt “On My Own” on Saturday.
She also showed a fondness for Stephen Sondheim, after performing recently in “Old Friends,” a revue of his hits. She put on Mrs. Lovett’s Cockney accent for a sprightly “By the Sea” from “Sweeney Todd,” and channeled the power of Ethel Merman with a hint of a New Yawk rasp to sing a forceful “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from “Gypsy.”
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But she confessed her real wish is to perform in a production of Sondheim’s “Company,” before singing “Being Alive.”
We also got a glimpse of what it would be like to have Salonga as other Disney princesses in a medley that saw her mash up “Part of Your World” (oohs from the crowd), “Colors of the Wind” (applause from the audience) and “Let It Go” (greeted with cheers).
The latter two Disney songs benefited from her Broadway belt, but Salonga also has a way with pop — or a combination of both, as in Sara Bareilles’ “She Used to Be Mine” from “Waitress,” which was given an emotional treatment.
Some of the unexpected picks showed how Salonga’s voice retains its sparkle: The lovely “Kailangan Kita,” a delicate yet deeply felt “Edelweiss” and a final Judy Garland-inspired encore of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” followed by a verse of a particularly warm “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
What a way to celebrate the season.
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https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/12/14/lea-salonga-orlando-concert-review/
